Toward Charismatic Virtual Agents: How to Animate Your Speech and Be Charismatic

Abstract

Charisma is a powerful device of communication and persuasion. Researchers have pinpointed specific behaviors that contribute to the perception of charisma. How can we realize such behaviors in a virtual character? In this paper, we discuss our work in the design of charismatic behavior for a virtual human. We developed a series of verbal charismatic strategies based on the research on charismatic leaders, which was then used to re-write an existing tutorial on the human circulatory system to express charisma. We then collected voice recordings of the tutorial in both charismatic and non-charismatic voices using actors from a crowd-sourcing platform. In this paper, we present the analysis of the charismatic and non-charismatic voice recordings, and discuss what nonverbal behaviors in speeches contribute to perceived charisma. Results can shed light on the synthesis of charismatic speeches for virtual characters.